TalkTalk customers sold to Rise Fibre lose automatic compensation for outages
About 120,000 customers are affected. Rise Fibre has not joined the Ofcom scheme that pays out automatically for a long outage.
TalkTalk is selling about 120,000 broadband customers to Rise Fibre, a smaller provider, to raise money against heavy debt. If you are one of them, little changes at first. But one protection you have with TalkTalk does not move across.
What does not change at first
TalkTalk and Rise Fibre say the move is automatic, and that you do not need to do anything. For now:
- Your speed, your router, and your monthly price stay the same.
- Your Direct Debit moves across with your account, so leave it in place.
- TalkTalk deals with your bills and questions, until Rise Fibre takes over.
The protection that does not move with you
TalkTalk has signed up to Ofcom’s automatic compensation scheme. Under it, a provider pays you a set amount, without you having to ask, when:
- Your broadband stops working, and is not fixed within 2 working days.
- A new service does not start on the day it was promised.
- An engineer misses an appointment.
The scheme is voluntary, and Rise Fibre has not joined it. So once Rise Fibre runs your service, you would no longer be paid automatically for a long outage. You would have to ask for money back, and no set rate applies.
Can you leave?
Right now your contract carries over unchanged, so the usual rules apply. If you are still in your minimum term, leaving early still costs you an early termination charge. If you are out of contract, you can leave whenever you want, at no cost.
If Rise Fibre later changes your terms in a way that leaves you worse off, you can leave. Under Ofcom’s rules, it must give you 30 days’ notice of such a change, and let you go without paying an exit fee.
What you can do now
If TalkTalk is moving you to Rise Fibre:
- Check whether you are still in your minimum term. Your welcome email or your online account shows the end date.
- If you are out of contract, compare deals before you decide to stay, because you can leave at no cost.
- Keep paying your bill as normal.
- If you cannot get a problem fixed, complain to your provider first. If that does not work, our complaints tool points you to the free scheme for broadband.